Page 102 of Fallen Empire

I’d remember her name until the day I died.

She came to me for help. Her husband was abusive. Wealthy. Connected. I remember thinking—she’s a millionaire, why doesn’t she just leave?I never said it out loud, but I’d thought it. Ironic when you think about it. But that was when I believed strength came in clean breakaways and court orders.

But Diane… she was sharp as a whip. She’d hired a private investigator. Had cold, hard evidence—the kind you pay good money for. Photos. Voice recordings. Bank statements tracing every dollar of bribery he tried to bury.

For years, she kept getting abused by the same man.

He yelled, she stayed.

He left bruises, she stayed.

He cheated, she stayed.

Everyone assumed she was after his money.

But then she looked me in the eyes and told me the truth.

She hadn’t covered up bruises all those years just to settle. She wasn’t after compromise or hush money. She wanted to destroy him. Burn everything he built down to ash.

And God, she could’ve done it. She had enough to bury him alive.

But I saw something else behind her rage.

Hurt.

Some part of her still loved him. And deep down, I think she wanted him to love her back. To change. To become the manshe’d convinced herself he used to be. But people like that don’t change.

Nobody knew she’d retained me. And just before I’d had the paperwork drawn up to file for divorce, everything changed.

A video leaked. Him in a hot tub with five women. Hours later, another. This one, him in bed with three of those same women.Herbed.

Turns out, he’d owed money to the wrong man. Someone wanted him humiliated. His face was plastered across every digital billboard in the city. They didn’t think about the consequences. The scorned woman his wife would become.

And that was the moment Diane snapped.

Surveillance footage from her home showed her walk inside, grab a knife from the kitchen drawer, and head upstairs.

She stabbed him twenty-three times.

Then slit both her wrists.

I never told anyone that story. Never said her name out loud again after the funeral.

The media called her a cautionary tale. The court called it a crime of passion. But I called it what it was—a woman who finally broke. A woman who gave everything she had to be loved by someone who only knew how to destroy.

And for years, I didn’t understand why she stayed.

Until I did.

Until I looked in the mirror and saw her eyes staring back at me.

I’d survived the bruises and broken bones. The betrayal. The sleepless nights filled with silent bargaining. I know what it’s like to love someone who turns your world into a war zone. I know what it’s like to think you can change them. That if you’re good enough, quiet enough, strong enough—they’ll stop.

But they don’t. They take it all for granted—until it’s too late. Until they push someone past the point of return.

I understand now what Diane went through.

I didn’t have a passion to die. But murder? I think I was capable of that now.